Hfcl To Float 6.8 M Gdrs

Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL) has issued 6.8 million GDRs at $7.353 per GDR, as part of a $50 million fund-raising programme.

Each GDR represents eight underlined equity shares of Rs 10 each at a premium of Rs 34.608 per share.

The GDRs were issued to Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, the depository. The GDRs will be listed at the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

Earlier, the company had passed an enabling resolution to allow foreign institutional investors (FII) to hold up to 49 per cent of the equity of the company. As on June 2002, FIIs held 1.94 per cent stake in the company.

HFCL was incorporated in 1987 and was privatised in December 1988. The company is involved in the manufacture of subscriber line multiplexers (subscriber carrier systems) at Solan, Himachal Pradesh. It has also set up an optical fibre cable plant at Goa. HFCL has three ISO 9002 approved manufacturing plants at Solan and Goa.

HFCL has posted a net profit of Rs 10.32 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2002 as compared with Rs 20.52 crore in the quarter ended 30 June 2001. Total income (net of excise) has increased from Rs 164.27 crore in the quarter ended 30 June 2001 to Rs 207.64 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2002. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, the HFCL stock opened at Rs 56.90 today, touched a high of Rs 57.35 a low of Rs 53.35 before finally closing at Rs 54.05 as against its previous close of Rs 55.25, registering a fall of 2.17 per cent.